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The cavities of many of the bones, on being broken, were found quite full of this substance: the metacarpal bones were so; as were the radii, and many others: the ribs, as was before mentioned,were impregnated with it; and so burned, as to be with difficulty distinguished from it: in which state also, were the vertrebræ and the bones of the pelvis.
The pitch had also penetrated into the cellular part of the head of the thigh bone; the small bones of the toes were quite full: but it had not entered into all the metatarsal bones.
From experiment it has been found; that, bones and flesh being boiled in common pitch, it will pervade the substance and fill the cavities of the former: and the latter will be so impregnated with it, as to be reduced to an uniform black brittle mass; not in the lest resembling flesh.
This treatment however will not account for the state, in which this Mummy was found; for, if the flesh had not been previously removed, though its appearance would have been entirely changed, yet the filleting could never have been found in contact with the bones.
From this last circumstance it is most likely that the body, excepting the feet, had been reduced to a skeleton, before it was laid up, it is also pretty certain, that it must have been kept some time in boiling pitch; both before and after some of the layers of the innermost filleting were laid on.
The feet seem to have been swathed, at lest in part, before they were committed to the hot pitch: and this seems to have pervaded the bandages, the flesh and the bones.
